Best Of

For me, the two great political mysteries of our time are the hatred of Starmer and the beatification of Badenoch.

Starmer hatred is pretty easy to understand.

The man is an odious buffoon, a whining hypocrite, and he's so entitled to freebies another bloke buy's his mrs her panties. He's not got a principled bone in his body, he needed the Supreme Court to tell him if a woman might have a penis, and he's let a parliamentary party with a mantra of "Who can we tax in order to pay benefits" walk all over him.

The beatification of Badenoch is a bit odder, but I think she's got quite a lot of credit for smacking the hated Starmer about at PMQs fairly regularly. Her problem is that no matter how much voters like her, her party simply can't be trusted to keep it's promises, but that doesn't really effect her personal ratings.

Natasha Clark
@NatashaC
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1h
Bridget Phillipson tells @AndrewMarr9 @lbc she will go get a T-shirt saying “spiteful class warrior” after her spat with Kemi Badenoch

Badenoch is a nasty piece of work.

John Crace nails it:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/graceless-kemi-badenoch-keir-starmer-pmqs-sketch

"Here was a chance for Kemi Badenoch to show her human side. To give the world a rare sighting of her empathy gene. But Kemi just can’t go there. She can’t read a room. She has only one mode. All-out attack. Other people’s moments of weakness are just material for her to use against them. Even now, she probably thinks she played a blinder at prime minister’s questions. A chance taken to humiliate Keir when he’s down. She has no idea how graceless she is. How charmless. All the more so because she has played no part in Starmer’s resignation. The Conservatives have just been bystanders. There has been no dramatic intervention by Kemi. No set piece in which she has exposed his weakness and forced the issue. Keir’s departure was purely between him and the Labour party. It was Keir’s MPs who had given up on him. No one else. "

"The mad thing is that it would have taken so little for Kemi to have come out of PMQs looking good. In their first exchanges after a Downing Street resignation, it’s customary for the leader of the opposition to say something complimentary about the outgoing prime minister. It doesn’t even have to be very much. She could have said she admired his steadfast support for Ukraine. Or gone for the human touch. That she had enjoyed the conversations they had held in private. Had loved meeting his wife and kids. Wished him all the very best. But Kemi would rather die than do this. She sees kindness as a sign of weakness. It would have cost her what passes for her self-worth. Had she done this – allowed even a forced croak of kindness to escape her lips – then everything that followed would have been OK. Kemi would have bossed the show. As it was, she crashed and burned. Her language becoming progressively more angry and violent the longer she went on. It was the behaviour of a spoiled child. A playground bully whom her party doesn’t dare to call out."

She seems to be upsetting all the right people

And gaining in popularity which is again upsetting some

And just recall how Starmer behaved towards Boris in exactly the same way

And the idea she played no part in Starmer's downfall is nonsense because without her humble address Starmer would have got away with Mandelson

Politics is Politics

The truth hurts and Kemi is sticking it to them. Bravo.

Nevertheless, I don’t see her as PM material and, more to the point, I think many voters will reach the same conclusion come the GE. She will be one of those LOTOs like Kinnock that, however well they do with their own party, people just can’t see making a success of the top job. Indeed that lack of credibility compared even with Farage likely helps many former Conservatives continue shopping away from home.

https://x.com/mbdaytrading/status/2069698353307296240

Andy Burnham is backing a proposal to scrap Council Tax and Stamp Duty, replacing them with a Proportional Property Tax (PPT).

📌 Rate: 0.48% of current property value
📌 Cap: £1,200 per year initially
📌 Supporters claim 77% of households would save an average £556 annually

A major reform if it ever gains traction. Winners and losers would depend heavily on property values and location.

Average Band D in England is just over £2k so capping it at £1,200 and 77% paying less suggests in terms of properties mid Band D.

Liverpools band A is around £1,600 so unless people in London are going to get hammered I can’t see how they can hold it at £1,200?

Peter.

My thought exactly.

Can't be much lower sum than people are currently paying is my guess.

Lot of people paying more in London!

King of the North
Slayer of the South....

One of the problems of selling this as a policy is that if I have no intention of selling my home, there is no saving in Stamp Duty by its abolition for me. So it has to stack up against current Council Tax for mot.

You always have the option of downsizing and reducing your costs. The costs of moving will be much lower without stamp duty.

I mean 'you' as in people in a similar position often end up with family homes bigger than they need. Which is fine. But it's also fair you pay your fair share as much as someone who moves homes more often for their career or to climb the properly ladder or to downside.

Stamp duty is just a really, really terrible tax.

"always have the option to sell" --> Granny forced to sell by Burnham's hated new tax....

It has the potential to be Burnham's WFA squared....

Not if you allow the people impacted to put the unpaid amount as a charge against the property.

Equally if you are that house rich and cash poor it’s probably time to move

Does this mean complete central government control of local government funding?
Can't see that being democratic or why places with higher property values should be subsidizing refuse collection in places with lower values...
That's before the economic illiteracy of collecting less than currently, what makes up the shortfall?

Politically and economically you need to be very careful f'ing with taxes that could have large (obvious but stupidly ignored) consequences.

Barring the councils for which the system was originally fixed (Westminster, Wandsworth and City of London), there are no London Band As that aren't comfortably over £1200, I expect that's true for England and Wales.

It's a cap of an increase of 1200.
There'll be many more winners than losers. Most of them in the North.
Levelling up in practice.

After housing costs there's a large proportion of people in the South with quite low disposable income comparatively... probably in the main Labour voters
Is this being paid by the property owner or the resident?

I have very low expectations, though I vote for him over Corbyn, but it's all pointing to him being a massive fuckup.

https://x.com/mbdaytrading/status/2069698353307296240

Andy Burnham is backing a proposal to scrap Council Tax and Stamp Duty, replacing them with a Proportional Property Tax (PPT).

📌 Rate: 0.48% of current property value
📌 Cap: £1,200 per year initially
📌 Supporters claim 77% of households would save an average £556 annually

A major reform if it ever gains traction. Winners and losers would depend heavily on property values and location.

Average Band D in England is just over £2k so capping it at £1,200 and 77% paying less suggests in terms of properties mid Band D.

Liverpools band A is around £1,600 so unless people in London are going to get hammered I can’t see how they can hold it at £1,200?

Peter.

My thought exactly.

Can't be much lower sum than people are currently paying is my guess.

Lot of people paying more in London!

King of the North
Slayer of the South....

One of the problems of selling this as a policy is that if I have no intention of selling my home, there is no saving in Stamp Duty by its abolition for me. So it has to stack up against current Council Tax for mot.

You always have the option of downsizing and reducing your costs. The costs of moving will be much lower without stamp duty.

I mean 'you' as in people in a similar position often end up with family homes bigger than they need. Which is fine. But it's also fair you pay your fair share as much as someone who moves homes more often for their career or to climb the properly ladder or to downside.

Stamp duty is just a really, really terrible tax.

https://x.com/mbdaytrading/status/2069698353307296240

Andy Burnham is backing a proposal to scrap Council Tax and Stamp Duty, replacing them with a Proportional Property Tax (PPT).

📌 Rate: 0.48% of current property value
📌 Cap: £1,200 per year initially
📌 Supporters claim 77% of households would save an average £556 annually

A major reform if it ever gains traction. Winners and losers would depend heavily on property values and location.

Why 0.48?
Why not 0.5? It's so close as to make no difference and would be easier to work out.
Hope it's going to go on empty properties held as investments too.

I think it's x2 on investment, second properties etc. Should be x5

Who is paying it if the house is owned by a landlord and let on a long term basis?